L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Names
and Naming Among Indians

[This
text was originally published in 1907 by the Bureau of American Ethnology
as part of its Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico.
It was later reproduced, in 1913, by the Geographic Board of Canada.
The work done by the American Bureau was monumental, well informed and
incorporated the most advanced scholarship available at the time. In
many respects, the information is still useful today, although prudence
should be exercised and the reader should consult some of the contemporary
texts on the history and the anthropology of the North American Indians
suggested in the bibliographic introduction to this section. The articles
were not completely devoid of the paternalism and the prejudices prevalent
at the time. While some of the terminology used would not pass the test
of our "politically correct" era, most terms have been left unchanged
by the editor. If a change in the original text has been effected it
will be found between brackets [.] The original work contained long
bibliographies that have not been reproduced for this web edition. For
the full citation, see the end of the text.]

Names
and Naming . Among the Indians personal
names were given and changed at the critical epochs of life; such as
birth, puberty, the first war expedition, some notable feat, elevation
to chieftainship, and, finally, retire­ment from active life was
marked by the adop­tion of the name of one's son. In general, names
may be divided into two classes: (1) True names, corresponding to our
personal names, and (2) names which answer rather to our titles and
honorary appellations. The former define or indicate the social group
into which a man is born, whatever honour they entail being due to the
accomplishments of ancestors, while the latter mark what the individual
has done himself.

There
are characteristic tribal differences in. names, and where a clan system
existed each clan had its own set of names, distinct from those of all
other clans, and, in the majority of cases, referring to the totem animal,
plant, or object. At the same time there were tribes in which names
apparently had nothing to do with totems, and some such names were apt
to occur in clans having totemic names. Most Siouan clans and bands
had names that were applied in a definite order to the boys and girls
born into them. A Mohave child born out of wedlock received some ancient
name, not commonly employed in the tribe. Among the interior Salish,
where there were no clans, names were usually inherited in both the
male and female lines for several generations, though new names were
continually introduced that were taken from dreams or noteworthy events.
Loskiel records that a Delaware child was often named in accordance
with some dream that had come to its father. According to Ross, a father
among some of the northern Athapascan tribes lost his name as soon as
a male child was born and was thenceforth called after the name of his
son; a Thlingchadinne changed his name after the birth of each successive
child, while an unmarried man was known as the child of his favourite
dog. Among the Maidu, infants might be named with reference to some
incident occurring at the time of birth, but many received no names
other than such general appellations as 'child,' 'baby,' or 'boy,' until
they were old enough to exhibit some characteristic which suggested
something appropriate. The father and mother addressed a boy all his
life by his boyhood name. A girl, however, received different successive
names at puberty, child-birth, and in old age. The Kiowa, being without
clans, received names suggested by some passing incident or to commemorate
a warlike exploit of some ancestor. Sometimes, however, they were hereditary,
and in any case they were bestowed by the grandparents to the exclusion
of the parents. Young men as they grew up usually assumed dream names,
in obedience to visions.

The
naming of a rich man's child among the coast Salish was accompanied
by a great feast and distribution of property, and an invited chief
publicly announced the name given. Names even originally belonging to
the higher class were bestowed upon young people among the Haida and
Tlingit when their relatives had potlatches, and it thus resulted that
names individually acquired became in time hereditary and were added
to the list of common names owned by the clan.

The
second name, or title, was sometimes, as has been said, bestowed on
account of some brave or meritorious action. Thus a Pawnee "was permitted
to take a new name only after the performance of an act indicative of
great ability or strength of character," and it was done during a public
ceremonial. Among the Siouan tribes a similar custom seems to have prevailed,
but among the Maidu of California entrance into the secret society took
its place as a reason for the bestowal of new titles. On the N. W. coast
a man adopted one of the potlatch, or sacred, names of his predecessor
when he gave the mortuary feast and erected the grave post. At every
subsequent potlatch he was at liberty to adopt an additional title,
either one used by his predecessor or a new one commemorative of an
encounter with a supernatural being or of some success in war or feast-giving.
Along with his place in a secret society a Kwakiutl obtained the right
to certain sacred names which had been received by the first holder
of his position from the spirit patron of the society and were used
only during the season of the ceremonial, like the titles employed in
the fraternal and other societies of civilized life. The second name
among this people also marks individual excellence rather than the attainment
of a hereditary position, for the person did not succeed to the office,
but had to pass through a long period of training and labour to be accepted.
After a man died his name was held in abeyance for a longer or shorter
period, and if it were taken from the name of some familiar object,
the name of that object often had to be altered, but the tabu period
was not longer than would allow the person's successor to collect his
property and give the death feast, and a simple phonetic change often
satisfied all scruples. Changes of this kind seem to have been carried
to greater extremes by some tribes, notably the Kiowa, where, on the
death of any member of a family all the others take new names, while
all the terms suggesting the name of the dead person are dropped from
the language for a period of years. Among the coast
Salish a single name was often used by successive chiefs for four or
five generations. Among the Iroquois and cognate tribes, according to
Hewitt, the official name of a chieftaincy is also the official name
of the officer who may for the time being become installed in it, and
the name of this chieftaincy is never changed, no matter how many persons
may successively become incumbents of it. Unlike the Indians of most
tribes, a Pueblo , although bearing several names, usually retained
one name throughout life. In many tribes a curious custom prohibited
a man from directly addressing his wife, his mother-in-law, and sometimes
his father-in-law, and vice versa.

Names
of men and women were usually, though not always, different. When not
taken from the totem animal, they were often grandiloquent terms referring
to the greatness and wealth of the bearer, or they might commemorate
some special triumph of the family, while, as among the Navaho, nicknames
referring to a personal characteristic were often used. The first name
frequently refers to something which especially impressed the child's
mother at the time of its birth. Often names were ironical and had to
be interpreted in a manner directly opposite to the apparent sense.
A failure to understand this, along with faulty interpretation, has
brought about strange, sometimes ludicrous, misconceptions. Thus the
name of a Dakota chief, translated 'Young-man-afraid-of-his-horses'
really signifies 'Young man whose very horses are feared.' Where the
clan system did not flourish, as among the Salish, the name often indicated
the object in nature is which a person's guardian spirit was supposed
to dwell. Names for houses and canoes went by families and clans like
personal names and property in general.

Names
could often be loaned, pawned, or even given or thrown away outright;
on the other hand, they might be adopted out of revenge without the
consent of the owner. The possession of a name was everywhere jealously
guarded, and it was considered discourteous or even insulting to address
one directly by it. This reticence, on the part of some Indians at least,
appears to have been due to the fact that every man, and every thing
as well, was supposed to have a real name which so perfectly expressed
his inmost nature as to be practically identical with him. This name
might long remain unknown to all, even to its owner, but at some critical
period in life it was confidentially revealed to him. It was largely
on account of this sacred character that an Indian commonly refused
to give his proper designation, or, when pressed for an answer, asked
someone else to speak it. Among the Maidu it was not customary, in addressing
a person, to use the name descriptive of his personal characteristics.

In
modern times the problem of satisfactorily naming Indians for purposes
of permanent record has been very puzzling owing to their custom of
changing names and to the ignorance on the part of persona in authority
of native customs and methods of reckoning descent. According to Mooney,
Setimkia, 'Bear bearing down (an antagonist),' the honourable war name
of a noted Kiowa chief, is mistranslated 'Stumbling Bear.' Tenepiabi,
'Bird coming into sight', has been popularly known as 'Hummingbird'
since he was a prisoner in Florida in 1875, probably a mistake for 'Coming
bird.' Hajo, a Creek war title signifying 'recklessly brave,' is popularly
rendered 'crazy,' as in the case of Chito Hajo, leader of the Creek
opposition to allotment, whose name is popularly and officially rendered
'Crazy Snake.' Even when translated correctly an Indian name often conveys
an impression to a white man quite the reverse of the Indian connotation.
Thus 'Stinking Saddle Blanket' (Takaibodal) might be considered an opprobious
epithet, whereas it is an honorary designation, meaning that the bearer
of it, a Kiowa, was on the warpath so continuously that he did not have
time to take off his saddle blanket. 'Unable-to-buy,' the name of a
Haida chief, instead of indicating his poverty, commemorates an occasion
when a rival chief did not have enough property to purchase a copper
plate he offered for sale.

In
recent years the United States Office of Indian Affairs has made an
effort to systematize the names of some of the Indians for the purpose
of facilitating land allotments, etc. By circular issued Dec. 1, 1902,
the office set forth the following principles governing the recording
of Indian names on agency rolls, etc.: (1) The father's name should
be the family surname; (2) the Indian name, unless too long and clumsy,
should be preferred to a translation; (3) a clumsy name may be arbitrarily
shortened (by one familiar with the language) without losing its identity;
(4) if the use of a translation seems necessary, or if a translation
has come into such general and accepted use that it ought to be retained,
that name should be written as one word: